So, I should say, right off the bat, that this is not a how to blog. As a newbie in the book collecting game, I am not nearly qualified to teach anyone how to collect. There are plenty of great resources out there which I don't intend to duplicate. I will endeavor to provide links pointing to said sites for those who are biblio-curious.
My collecting began, innocently enough, with one simple book: In the Night Kitchen by Maurice Sendak. It's the earliest book I remember from my childhood & even now, 35+ years later, it still gives me warm fuzzies. For a long time I only collected Maurice. I would scour used bookstores, yard sales, and library sales. Occasionally I'd bite the bullet and buy a book (at full price) from Barnes & Noble - but half the fun has always been the hunt. I discovered a hard-to-find copy of Zlateth the Goat at a Friends-of-the-Library sale, and a coveted edition of The Juniper Tree and Other Tales from Grimm from a used bookstore that was going out of business. In all honesty, The Juniper Tree, doesn't have much value - but its worth to me is immeasurable.
Lately, though, I've been more interested in collecting books that not only give me warm fuzzies, but also might appreciate in value as I (& they) get older. I am the type of person who will always enjoy the book as an object to be held and paged through. So, at a time when everyone (including Borders) is coming out with e-Readers - and when Barnes & Noble predicts that within a couple of years 60% of their sales will be digital books - I feel an urgency to honor (& collect) that physical object.
Clearly, I'm not the only one. There are plenty of bibliophiles out there. But there is a frustration that comes with collecting - Other than collecting those books that we love, how do we know what to collect? Where, on this vast Web, are we supposed to look to figure it out? What keywords should we type into Google that might provide us with that magical enlightenment? It's one thing if you have hours at a time to surf the Web for this information, but it's all too easy to whittle away your day with not much information to show for it.
Hopefully, this blog can help aim you in a direction (if not the right direction), giving you a centralized location to access resources that just might make the hunt a little easier & more fun.Labels: bibliophile, book collecting, links, resources, tips